[Anthology] The Paranormal 13- now With a Bonus 14th Novel!

by Dima Zales

  “It isn’t like that!” Thor says. “You will be absolved of all wrongdoing in this matter. This is the truth!”

  Absolved? As though he was the one who needs absolution. His sons, Sigyn, Mimir and Hoenir are dead. Loki grits his teeth and feels his eyes get hot. Thinking about them all gone — his body feels hollow, as though he is an empty shell.

  He takes a deep breath and pulls himself back into the moment. Absolution is a farce. As soon as Loki returns to Asgard, there will be some dire punishment, and this time there will be no Sigyn to tend to him. Loki rolls his eyes at Thor’s naivete. When will Thor realize Odin is as capable at lying as Loki, perhaps more so? Anything to “protect” the realms, or rather, his own power.

  “Lovely,” says Loki, tapping his fingers on Car’s roof. “But I’m afraid I have to refuse.” Shrugging, he points down at Car and says, “I have some mortals I have sworn to return to their own realm. You know I always keep my oaths.”

  Thor scowls. “Father said that you could slip between the realms … ” He walks around the car towards the driver’s side — as he does so, the Valkyries raise their spears a bit higher. Loki scowls at them and then turns his attention to Thor. Odin’s son is now peeking in the driver’s side window. Thor smiles and waggles a finger at Amy as one might waggle a finger at a pretty bird in a cage. In the back seat Fenrir growls warningly.

  Looking up, Thor raises his eyebrows and says brightly, “She is a pretty thing, Loki. And just your type.” Raising one hand to his chest, Thor makes groping motions with his fingers in what is probably a universal symbol for large breasts. “I suppose the old woman in the back is her kin. Convince them to come back to Asgard with you. Keep the girl as your plaything for a decade. When she withers she can remain your servant, a much better life than she’d have in her own realm.”

  Somewhere a Valkyrie’s spear must fire accidentally because Loki sees a flare of orange flame in the periphery of his vision. His sons are dead. As are his ex-wife and two best friends. Thor dares talk of playthings? Loki is too furious to speak.

  “What did he just say?” says Amy in English, her voice sounding indignant.

  Loki looks down at her. She is staring hard out the window at Thor who is waggling his finger at her again and smiling like an idiot. It is probably innate contrariness that makes Loki translate. “Oh, he’s just suggested I bring you home to Asgard and keep you as a plaything and servant. Perhaps you’d like to answer?”

  Eyes going wide, Amy’s brows draw together and she springs up through the window in the roof between Loki’s knees. Facing Thor she says, “You can tell the God of Blunder he can take that idea and shove it up his great big Viking butt!”

  Loki blinks. Well, that was absolutely priceless. The corners of his lips pull up.

  Thor’s face goes completely red, his lips curve into something between a frown and a grimace, and his brows draw into one line. The hand holding his hammer starts to tremble.

  “Actually,” Loki says, keeping his gaze fixed on Thor, “Thor understands English well enough.”

  “Oh,” says Amy, sounding not at all brave. Putting a hand gently on her head, Loki pushes her back into the car.

  Thor is breathing deeply, but Loki nor Car nor the girl are dead. Odin must want Loki very badly.

  In English, Thor says very slowly, “You can tell your whore that my orders are to bring you back to Asgard alive. Father will not care about her puny little mortal life.”

  Head darting out of the car again, in a voice that is plaintive rather than angry, Amy says, “I am not a whore!”

  Putting his hand on her head not so gently this time, Loki pushes her back inside. With a smirk he says, “She has my oath of protection. You’ll have to kill me first.”

  With a bellow, Thor swings his hammer in empty air like a toddler having a tantrum. Something cracks in the distance, like lightning hitting tree branches. Loki smiles. He hears the Valkyries at the dark side of the forest give angry cries.

  In Car, Amy starts pulling at his leg. “Loki!” she whispers.

  “Not now!” he snaps down at her.

  In the distance he hears more cracking in rapid succession. Thor looks away. Someone shouts, “Dark Elves!”

  “Loki!” says Amy.

  He scowls at her. But she gives a ferocious tug at his leg. Letting himself be tugged into Car, he finds his face just inches from hers. Her eyes are wide with fear — and so help him he’s about to make her more afraid with the words at the tip of his tongue. But before he can even breathe she says, “Do elves have automatic weapons? Because that sounds like automatic weapons.”

  Loki’s eyes go wide. He looks towards the dark forest. Something hits the side of Car and there is the sharp clang of metal on metal. In the dark forest there are loud angry popping noises getting closer. Valkyries from the left side of the road are streaming past Car to the dark side. Car makes a sharp beep.

  Turning back to Amy, he sees her hands are already at the wheel.

  “That does sound like automatic weapons fire,” he says. He hasn’t heard it since World War II.

  Amy hits the gas. Loki puts a hand on her leg and says, “I’m making us invisible again!”

  From the backseat Beatrice says quietly, “Oh, the elves have fireworks.” Loki looks back at her; her eyes are still closed. Everything around them begins to shimmer as his spell takes effect. He hears Thor yelling orders.

  Loki looks at the shimmering Amy, now steering them around Thor’s chariot. “How do you know what automatic weapons sound like?” he asks.

  “I live in Chicago,” she says, as though that is explanation.

  Her shimmering form hunching over the wheel, Amy says, “Elves have guns?”

  “No,” says Loki. More gunshots go off, and the car shoots forward. “Not that I know of.”

  “Oh, what lovely fireworks,” says Beatrice.

  An explosion goes off in the distance behind them and something whizzes past. Amy jumps beneath his hand. Loki follows the whizzing shape with his eyes and turns his head. “That was just another flare.”

  He turns around. “Thor’s broken off from the rest and is pursuing us!”

  Car shoots forward.

  It’s like a video game Amy tells herself. The flares aren’t going to hurt them. No one dies if they get hit.

  “Veer left,” Loki says. Amy veers left and a bolt of blue shoots by the car. She’s not sure how long she’s been driving since the Valkyries were overtaken by dark elves. It seems like forever, but it’s probably only a few minutes.

  “We’re almost at the gate,” Loki says. “Slow down.”

  “How will you open it?” Amy says, putting a foot gently on the brake. “Will you have to get out of the car?”

  “Of course I’ll have to get out of the car,” Loki snaps. “Stop here!”

  Amy stops so quickly she bumps the steering wheel.

  Loki’s hand leaves her knee, and she is suspended in absolute nothingness.

  “Car, open up the top hatch!” Loki says.

  Amy doesn’t try to argue with him. She just searches blindly for the button in the door's armrest. Another flare goes by. She hears what sounds like feet on the hood of the car, and then the only sound is the wind. She can feel rain coming in through the open sunroof and she shivers.

  There is the sound of quick steps on the hood again, and then Loki’s voice is very close to her ear. “Drive forward!”

  Amy does. She sees the rainbow of the gateway again, and her body and the car come into view bathed in early morning light. Dark bricks surround her on either side and she smells garbage and urine and thinks that an alley has never smelled so sweet. She looks up. Loki is half on the hood, half on the roof. His head is above her, looking in the direction they came, a sword in his hand. Glancing in the rear view mirror she sees Beatrice sleeping, the seat behind her Grandmother just coming into view.

  Amy smiles and breathes out a long breath of relief. The car is almost through when it
suddenly jerks up and backwards, the back wheels seeming to leave the ground. Lines of light surround it on either side. Loki swears. Amy looks back in the window and sees a huge hulking Thor-like shadow seeming to emerge out of nothing behind her. It looks like he’s pulling the car backwards by the bumper.

  Loki scrambles across the roof towards the back of the car. Amy doesn’t think. Shouting “Loki, hold on!” she throws the car into four wheel drive, then reverse, and hits the gas. There is a loud thud. Amy can’t see the back of the car; it must still be in Alfheim. But she feels it when the back tires hit the ground and bounce. Heart suddenly very loud, Amy puts the car into first gear and pulls forward but meets resistance.

  She looks back. Light flashes in a wide vertical circle behind the car. There is a loud clang, and Loki jumps down off the car and stands in the middle of the circle shouting something in a weird slavic-sounding language. His sword is gone, but in one hand he holds what looks like a tiny book. She thinks she sees Thor again, but then the circle collapses on itself and there’s just Loki swaying on his feet.

  Turning, with wavering steps he comes around the car. Amy hears the scrape of metal on pavement, and then Loki climbs into the passenger side, sword in his hand.

  Beatrice is rubbing her eyes. Fenrir is standing on top of her, looking out the backseat. There is no Thor, but the last six inches of the rear of the car is just gone.

  Closing the door and hanging his head, Loki says softly, “Will Car be alright?”

  Amy looks back at the missing rear end, and over at Loki. “You know … it’s just a machine.”

  Loki turns his head to look at her. “How can you say that?”

  Feeling like a heel, she turns to the steering wheel. Her hands are shaking so much she doesn’t really want to go anywhere for a few minutes.

  “Dude!” comes a loud voice from outside the car.

  Raising her eyes, she sees three guys with spiky hair in hipster clothing standing directly in front of them in the alley. Their mouths are open. The middle one’s got a bottle of something in his hands. It falls to the ground and lands with a crash.

  Somewhere a police siren wails.

  Swallowing, Amy revs the engine a bit. The hipsters move to the side. She pulls out into the alley and heads home. Thankfully, they don’t run into any police. She’s sure driving with a hole in the back of your car is some sort of moving violation.

  Loki says nothing the entire way. He just slouches over in the seat, his breathing ragged and uneven as though he’s extremely tired or might weep.

  It’s still mostly dark out when she backs into the garage, and she doesn’t see any neighbors about. Beatrice says, “Oh, my, are we home already?”

  Before Amy’s even parked, Loki jumps out of his seat and walks out of the garage.

  “I’ll be right back, Grandma!” Amy says, following him.

  She catches him just a few feet outside of the garage. “Loki,” she says putting a hand on his left arm that doesn’t have any armor on it. He stops but doesn’t look at her.

  Jaw tight he says, “I think you should know, I have tangled the branch of the world tree we came through. Neither Odin or Heimdall will be able to follow it and find you — ” He stops, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and disappears. For an instant Amy feels him beneath her hand, warm and solid, but then that’s gone, too.

  Fenrir barks in the garage. Amy just stands staring in the empty alley, feeling hollow and empty.

  12

  It’s nearly 9:00 PM, three days after Loki disappeared. Amy is just coming home from a shift as vet tech at a clinic up on the North Side. She only gets about eight hours a week from the clinic, and she has managed to get another four as a hostess at a restaurant, but jobs are surprisingly hard to come by this summer.

  As Amy climbs the stairs with Fenrir scampering at her feet, she sees Beatrice’s door ajar, the light on. She peeks in. Beatrice is sitting on her bed. The dress from Alfheim is hanging on her closet door. It still glows.

  Beatrice must hear her because she turns to Amy, a little girl smile on her face. “Would it be wrong to put on our dresses occasionally and throw tea parties?”

  Amy blinks, feeling her eyes get wet. Beatrice’s memories of Alfheim are only good. Despite Amy’s decidedly more mixed experience, she understands what Beatrice means. “I’d be happy to join you for tea,” Amy says.

  Beatrice sighs and relaxes. “I’m not just going senile. It was real, it really happened!”

  Amy stares at the dress.

  Beatrice sighs. “Still no sign of Loki. He left his sword.” She turns to Amy. “That must be a sign he will come back?”

  Amy bites her lip. She is worried it might be a sign of something worse, something self-destructive. “I hope so,” she says. Loki in some ways reminds her of the worst frat-boy she’s ever met, except with magic. But there is a part of her that believes he’s good, and noble even. She remembers the way he stood up to Thor when that big overgrown oaf suggested keeping her as a pet. And Loki did save her from Malson. And then the way he danced with Beatrice … She swallows. Hopefully he’s out there, and okay.

  Amy looks at Beatrice’s beautiful dress and then down at her slightly stained blue scrubs. Suddenly realizing how much she smells like ill cats and dogs, she says, “I’m going to go take a shower.”

  Beatrice nods.

  When Amy comes out of the shower, Beatrice’s light is off. With Fenrir by her side, Amy curls up in her own bed and tries to read a book. She’s exhausted, but she’s still having trouble sleeping. After an hour or so, she turns off her light. She lies in the dark gazing at the ceiling for far too long, but she must eventually drift off because she lifts her head at one point and Fenrir says in a deep masculine voice, “Amy, get up.”

  Amy stares at her little dog. Fenrir is lying down at her feet, her ears cocked, seemingly staring at a point at the end of her nose.

  Amy blinks. It must be a dream — if Fenrir spoke it would be with a girl’s voice. At least I’m sleeping, she thinks. With that sleep-induced logic at the forefront of her mind, she lies back down and closes her eyes.

  “Ahem!”

  Amy opens her eyes. Where her little Fenrir was lying at the end of her bed, there is now a giant wolf sitting on its haunches.

  Amy screams, scrambles backwards, and hits the backboard of her bed so hard her head bounces. She tries to jump out of her bed, catches her feet on the sheets, and promptly falls flat on the floor.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” says the wolf in a voice that is still masculine, but also familiar … and slightly slurred.

  Amy turns her head. “Loki?” she asks cautiously.

  The wolf raises a paw to its mouth and snickers. Putting the paw down, it says in a loud voice, “I am the spirit of Fenrir!” Letting loose a howl, it lies down on the bed, rolls over on its back, and closes its eyes. From tail to nose it completely fills the bed. Amy’s mouth opens, and the real Fenrir runs over and starts barking at the wolf.

  From the door comes a knock. “Amy?”

  “It’s alright, Grandma. I think it’s just … Fenrir.”

  The wolf blinks its eyes open. “Actually, you were right the first time. Sort of. I think I’m more Loki’s subconscious.”

  “Loki’s subconscious?” says Amy.

  “Loki’s subconscious?” says Beatrice through the door.

  Rolling on its stomach, the wolf says, “Yes, that tiny, tiny, little part of him that doesn’t want to drown in his own vomit in your backyard.”

  Amy springs up and opens her bedroom door. “Grandma,” she says. “I think Loki is in the backyard.”

  Beatrice looks past Amy and says, “Who were you talking to?”

  “The wolf.”

  “Wolf?” says Beatrice.

  Amy looks back. The bed is empty.

  “Never mind,” she says, turning and running down the hall. She hears Beatrice following more slowly behind her.

  A few moments later Amy throws open the kitc
hen door. Sure enough there is Loki sprawled out on the lawn on his back, an arm thrown over his eyes, his attire flickering from armor to street clothes and back again. She sees something wet glistening on his chin and winces. Magical frat boy indeed.

  Behind her she hears Beatrice tsk-tsk. Her grandmother walks right by Amy and out onto the lawn. As she goes over to Loki, a light in the neighbor’s house goes on. A window opens and said neighbor, Harry, a sixty five-ish year old man who’s lived there forever, says, “Beatrice, I saw that bum pissing in your bushes! Want me to call the cops?”

  Amy sags. Whatever hope she had for nobility in Loki is flushed down the drain. Or peed into the hedge.

  “No, no, no! That’s alright, Harry!” Beatrice shouts. “We know him.”

  “What’s that he’s wearing?” Harry shouts. Several other lights down the block go on.

  Beatrice taps Loki with a foot, then looks up at Harry again. “Clothes, Harry! Clothes!”

  Loki begins to cough.

  “Amy!” Beatrice says. “Help me roll him over!”

  Startled out of her reverie, Amy runs out and helps Beatrice roll Loki onto his side. He smells like a wino, and up close she can see he hasn’t shaven, probably since Alfheim.

  “Ugh,” says Amy.

  Beatrice turns her head and winces.

  Fenrir, Amy’s Fenrir, moves closer and licks his face. Which is probably a testament to just how disgusting whatever is on his chin is.

  “Eww … ” says Amy.

  Beatrice puts a hand over her nose and her mouth and kicks Loki in the ribs with surprising force.

  Loki’s eyes flutter but don’t open.

  “Get in the house, Loki!” Beatrice says.

  “Grandma,” Amy says, “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

  Beatrice kicks him again. To Amy’s surprise, Loki rolls over onto his stomach and pulls himself up onto his feet, but he tips dangerously.

  “You get under that arm,” says Beatrice resolutely. “I’ll get under this one.”

  Together they manage to get Loki across the lawn and up the stoop. They’ve just stepped into the kitchen and Amy’s head is bent over when Beatrice screams and drops the arm she’s holding.